Back in 2022, Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over “dark patterns” that may have tricked players into spending in-game currency on cosmetics, dance emotes, and other items they didn’t actually want. Two years later, the first payments are finally going out and some players are getting checks for over $100 as a result.
The regulatory state moves slowly, and despite players filing claims a year ago to be part of the settlement, payments only started going out recently. “The FTC is sending its first round of payments in this matter and will distribute additional money at a later date,” the agency announced this week. “Today, the FTC is sending 629,344 total payments, about half of which are PayPal payments and the other half are checks.”
Am I eligible for a Fortnite refund?
While people began filing claims months ago, anyone impacted by the settlement still has until January 10, 2025 to request a refund. To be eligible for the payment, players must meet one of the following criteria:
- You were charged in-game currency for items you didn’t want between January 2017 and September 2022
- Your child made charges to your credit card without your knowledge between January 2017 and November 2018
- Your account was locked between January 2017 and September 2022 after you complained to your credit card company about wrongful charges
Anyone impacted just needs to file a claim on the FTC’s website. You can choose to receive the refund as a check in the mail or through PayPal. The total amount you get will depend on how many other people also file claims. The FTC is currently projecting the average payment to be about $114 per person, or the equivalent of about six Fortnite skins.
Why did this happen?
The $245 million settlement came amid a regulatory crackdown on how Fortnite’s in-game store works and the way it monitors data that belongs to children. When it comes to the shop that sells everything from Rollie dances to Godzilla costumes specifically, the FTC determined that Epic Games was using “dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases.”
This included making it too easy to accidentally purchase skins while previewing them and making it too hard to find the refund button while the purchases were still eligible for reversal. The FTC also claimed that some players who did successfully get refunds would then get banned for presumed fraudulent behavior.
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On top of the settlement, the FTC also required Epic to stop “charging consumers through the use of dark patterns or from otherwise charging consumers without obtaining their affirmative consent,” as well as “blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges.”
The FTC announced this week that it expects the next round of settlement refunds to go out to impacted players sometime in 2025 after it’s been able to verify all of the current claims. It’ll arrive several years late, but just in time for fans hurting from Fortnite’s ever-rising currency and battle pass prices.
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